5/2/2024 0 Comments Underground house designs![]() Also, relying solely on caves for dwelling places would likely lead to a pretty severe housing shortage. Most building sites worldwide have an inexhaustible subsoil source that can be used to build healthy, durable homes.īut what about returning to the types of dwellings that our hunter and gatherer ancestors relied upon? Most of us are probably not going to be living in buffalo-hide tents. Returning to earthen building techniques (such as those used at Çatalhöyük) can also reduce the demand for natural resources such as lumber. Making an effort to source local building materials harvested sustainably is also an essential part of the equation, primarily to reduce the energetic costs of transportation. Might we realistically be able to provide a growing, more affluent population with dignified, energy-efficient homes while simultaneously reducing the ever-increasing demand for resource extraction? Incorporating recycled and salvaged materials into the homes we build is one way to minimize the need for new resource extraction. However, the homes we live in and the buildings we inhabit will continue to require the mining, extraction, processing, and transportation of an enormous amount of natural resources. Increasing the operational efficiency of homes to achieve net-zero energy status is undoubtedly essential in the sustainability picture. ![]() How Does Housing Need to Change?Īs our collective demand for homes, businesses, industries, and other buildings continues to surge in the coming decades, the need for natural resources is inevitably going to grow. Much of that natural resource use fuels the increased demand for buildings as the population grows and living standards continue to rise. In addition, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ( OECD) believes that the world's raw materials consumption will nearly double by 2060. About 800 billion tons of natural resource "stock" are tied up in these constructions globally, most of it in industrialized nations. Recent research finds that the total volume of natural resources used in buildings and transport infrastructure increased about 23-fold between 19. For the first time in our species' history, the land's natural resources were utilized to feed and clothe us and give us permanent shelter.įast forward 10,000 years or so, and the building industry, which evolved from those simple mud huts of Çatalhöyük, is today one of the largest users of our world's natural resources. Despite their simple design, however, the shift to village life that necessitated permanent buildings was one of the most profound human civilization changes. The mud-brick homes of Çatalhöyük were oriented so that the front "door" was a hole in the roof where people entered. The art of home building began rather modestly. This small village dates back at least 9,500 years and might have held a population of as many as 8,000 people. These are the remains of what is believed to be one of the first permanent human settlements in modern-day Turkey. Recently archaeologists have discovered simple mud-brick dwellings at Çatalhöyük. At that time, our ancestors slowly began to adopt agricultural practices, which led to villages and permanent dwelling places. This nomadic lifestyle began to change about 10,000 years ago. Animal skins and hides were easy to carry shelters, and sleeping under the stars was probably commonplace. Because they moved so frequently, the idea of a permanent dwelling place (a house, if you will) was virtually non-existent. Our nomadic, hunter and gatherer ancestors mostly made their homes in caves that they found as they followed animals across the lands. Model House of the Çatalhöyük People in Turkey A Short History of Underground Homesīefore the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, the homes we lived in were essentially a part of our inhabited landscape. Below, we take an in-depth look at the history of building homes underground and explain some of the advantages of this unique form of architecture. This example of vernacular architecture has found that the land underneath our feet can offer a comfortable, energy-efficient dwelling place in many cases. ![]() Dozens of different cultures worldwide, from the freezing Arctic North to Australia's arid and hot deserts, have a history of building homes either partly or entirely buried underground.
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